MENG 6610 Syllabus

MENG 6610 Literature and the Media

Syllabus

This reading schedule (as well as the playful section titles) is meant to be suggestive, not prescriptive, chronological, or inclusive.

Take a plunge when you sign up for your reports/seminar facilitation, and please clarify the focus of your presentation with me in advance. I will then also direct you (after you have done your own search) to additional specific sources, if necessary.

All essay materials listed below are available on ereserve, online, or easily retrievable from the WSU's Stewart Library data bases

Week 1–3	General Introduction — Literature and the Modern Media Ecology The Pencil of Nature — Writings by Hand and Writing with the Sun Historical shapshots of photography I, II Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables (chap. I - XIII) Jennifer Green-Lewis, "Fiction's Photographers and Their Works: Villains Outside the Frame," Framing the Victorians, 65-94 Nathaniel Hawthorne, Seven Gables (chap. XIV-XXI) "Daguerreotypy and Other Technologies," Norton, 293-313 Alan Trachtenberg, "Seeing and Believing: Hawthorne's Reflections on the Daguerreotype in The House of the Seven Gables," Norton 418-438 Seven Gables ________________________________________ (presentation) * Please note: no class Labor Day, 7 September (Week 3) *
Week 4–5	Gender and Information Processing I — Telegraphy, Class, and Female Power Henry James, In the Cage John Carlos Rowe, "Gender, Sexuality and Work in In the Cage," in Norton, 483-502 Hayles, N. Katherine, "The Dream of Information. Escape and Constraint . . . ," My Mother was a Computer. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 62-71. In the Cage (I) __________________________________________________ In the Cage (II) __________________________________________________
Week 5–7	Sound and Silence — Early Interactions between Literature Print and Phonography (or, Gender again) John M. Picker, "Introduction: The Tramp of a Fly's Footstep," Victorian Soundscapes. OUP, 2003: 3-11 History of Sound Recording I, II Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, — "The Voice of Science" — "The Story of the Japanned Box" Jean-Marie Guyau, "Memory and Phonograph" Doyle/Writers and sound recording ________________________________________ George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (1913), or alternative text TBA Pygmalion ______________________________________________
Week 7–8	Machined Writing (I) — From Manuscript to Typescript Typewriter History I, II, III, IV Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Case of Identity" Martin Heidegger, on The Hand and the Typewriter (from Parmenides, 1942/43) Writers and the Typewriter ________________________________________
Week 9–10	Vampires and Information Culture — Dracula Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, "Undead Networks: Information Processing and Media Boundary Conflicts in Dracula," Literature and Science, Ed. Donald Bruce and Anthony Purdy. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1994. 107-129 Jennifer Wicke, "Vampiric Typewriting: Dracula and its Media," ELH 59 (1992): 467-93 Dracula (I) ____________________________________________________ Dracula (II) ____________________________________________________
Week 11–12	American Literary Naturalism and the Modern Media Ecology *Frank Norris's McTeague* (I) — Cinema, The Body, and the Big Stink** Frank Norris, McTeague Paul Young, "Telling Descriptions, Frank Norris's Kinetoscopic Naturalism and the Future of the Novel, 1899," Modernism/modernity 14.4 (2007): 645-668 (Sergei Eisenstein, "Dickens, Griffith, and the Film Today," Film Form: Essays in Film Theory, ed. Jay Leyda esp. pp. 195-234) McTeague ________________________________________ Frank Norris's McTeague (II) -- Agency and Angst: Mangled Hands and Machined Writing Frank Norris, McTeague (ctd.) Michael Fried, "Stephen Crane's Upturned Faces," Realism, Writing, Disfiguration—On Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1987: pp. 93-121. McTeague ________________________________________________
Week13	Machined Writing (II) — Identity, Gender, Power) J. M. Barrie, The Twelve-Pound Look Dorothy West, "The Typewriter" D. H. Lawrence, selected essays from Phoenix II
Week 14–15	The Poetics and Politics of (European) Media Modernism Italian Futurism, Futurist Manifestos, F-Technopoetics & Beyond Guillaume Apollinaire, "The New Spirit and the Poets," Selected Writings of Guillaume Apollinaire. Ed. and trans. Roger Shattuck. New York: New Directions, 1971: 227-237 Guillaume Apollinaire, "Lettre-Ocean" Italian Futurism ________________________________________ Modernist Media Poetics _________________________________ * Essay hard copy due date: Mo, 30 Nov 2009 * Please consult the Editing Checklist in the Toolbox for essential pointers regarding your essay.
Week 15	Artificial Summary & Conclusion Twilight of the Books, Google going Retro, Fast-Forward Publishing Student End-of-the Semester Project Thumbnails

Concluding note: The only dumb question is the one you don't ask. My door is always open (and if not, please knock; I will answer if I am there). Please don't hesitate to stop by during my office hours or to make an appointment, if you're having trouble getting started or want to talk about your ideas or progress.

As well, please feel free to use my electronic address to communicate with me.